Devotion and Defiance in Fan Activity and a flat tax was imposed regardless of tickets actually sold (Grade A paid 28 per cent of capacity, B 18 per cent, C 14 per cent). Distributors had to bear these expenses as well as the increasing rent of theatres. In consequence, they began to lose money for all screenings of less than 50 per cent of capacity. For them, the safest bet was a film that ran to packed houses simultaneously in a number of halls, even if only for a few weeks. Distributors, who generally bought films under production, had to rely entirely on common categories like the star's 'image', the music, the promise of 'action', the 'comedy track', etc., in order to estimate the film's potential worth. These are elements that conventionally attract the 'repeat audience' or those who watch a film more than once. Fans became important to this because their active participation on the opening day attracted crowds who then returned to see the film, as well as, more directly, because the fans themselves constitute a major part of the repeat audience. Two recent books have addressed the fan phenomenon in Tamilnadu: M.S.S. Pandian's The Image Trap (1992) and Sara Dickey's Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India (1993). In Tamilnadu it has been the active political participation of fan clubs, especially the use of film by the Dravidian movement, that remains the focus of scholarly attention (Hardgrave and Neidhart, 1975; Pandian, 1991,1992; Dickey, 1993a, 1993b). Although in itself a major phenomenon that seems to radically distinguish the South Indian variety of fandom, it is possible that the unprecedented involvement of fans in party politics in Tamilnadu has restricted debate on fans as being (potential) political cadres, and therefore reduced political debate itself to its narrow implications. In Andhra Pradesh, despite the presence of FAs from the 1950s, and despite their demonstrable effectiveness in the political careers of NTR and others, like Krishna himself, Jamuna (a Lok Sabha MP), Mohan Babu (Rajya Sabha), Nutan Prasad and Raja Gopala Rao (both MLCs for a term), the phenomenon has received little critical attention. Although I am concerned with the political implications to the extent that I am interested in questions of power (to define, to control), my study does not restrict itself to the kind of fan activity that furthers potential politicians, or fans as potential political cadres. I shall instead argue that fans constantly negotiate between what is expected from them by the industry (and by the stars themselves) and what it is that empowers them. Fans deploy the vocabulary of excess, hyperbole, adulation/devotion/admiration often in order to articulate their own social-political, cultural and economic aspirations. Even if it is true that FAs are created by the industry, fans have today come a long way from being unpaid servants of the industry. My endeavour would be to show the process and the result of fan activity overcoming its 'original' functions. In Part I, I discuss stardom and its expectations from fans as well as the occasionally uncomfortable relationship between a star and his fans. Part II deals with how the fans' aspirations are worked into their FA activities, and the results of those activities. Journal of Arts & Ideas